Diseased Dove?

[Nick Smith]

I was in the garden this morning enjoying the sunshine when I spied this Dove sitting on the fence, at first I thought the bird was a bit brave sitting within about 15 feet until I realised the Dove was quite sick, the bird's breathing was very laboured and when I looked through the lens of my Canon 40D I noticed the bird had mucus (spelling) around the beak.



Am I right in thinking it is Avian Flu or something else?

[RKB]

It is trichomoniasis (parasites in the throat). If you are feeding birds, you need to take down all of your feeders and bird baths immediately, and sterilise them. This is highly contagious to other birds, and killed half a million Greenfinches in one year alone.

There's info here: http://www.ufaw.org.uk/documents/GBH...heet_Sep06.pdf

but 2 weeks is not long enough for doves etc as they take longer to die. I'd hold off feeding now until the autumn - there's plenty of natural food around and the birds need to disperse away from the disease.